Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Complete eBook

“I couldn’t do it—­I couldn’t.
I can’t even consider it. I’m very
sorry. I would, if it were possible. But
it isn’t possible.”

“I reckon if you see the photographs once”

“It isn’t that, Mr. Dryfoos. But
I’m not in the way of that kind of thing any
more.”

“I’d give any price you’ve a mind
to name—­”

“Oh, it isn’t the money!” cried
Beaton, beginning to lose control of himself.

The old man did not notice him. He sat with his
head fallen forward, and his chin resting on his folded
hands. Thinking of the portrait, he saw Conrad’s
face before him, reproachful, astonished, but all gentle
as it looked when Conrad caught his hand that day
after he struck him; he heard him say, “Father!”
and the sweat gathered on his forehead. “Oh,
my God!” he groaned. “No; there ain’t
anything I can do now.”

Beaton did not know whether Dryfoos was speaking to
him or not. He started toward him. “Are
you ill?”

“No, there ain’t anything the matter,”
said the old man. “But I guess I’ll
lay down on your settee a minute.” He tottered
with Beaton’s help to the aesthetic couch covered
with a tiger-skin, on which Beaton had once thought
of painting a Cleopatra; but he could never get the
right model. As the old man stretched himself
out on it, pale and suffering, he did not look much
like a Cleopatra, but Beaton was struck with his effectiveness,
and the likeness between him and his daughter; she
would make a very good Cleopatra in some ways.
All the time, while these thoughts passed through
his mind, he was afraid Dryfoos would die. The
old man fetched his breath in gasps, which presently
smoothed and lengthened into his normal breathing.
Beaton got him a glass of wine, and after tasting
it he sat up.

“You’ve got to excuse me,” he said,
getting back to his characteristic grimness with surprising
suddenness, when once he began to recover himself.
“I’ve been through a good deal lately;
and sometimes it ketches me round the heart like a
pain.”

In his life of selfish immunity from grief, Beaton
could not understand this experience that poignant
sorrow brings; he said to himself that Dryfoos was
going the way of angina pectoris; as he began shuffling
off the tiger-skin he said: “Had you better
get up? Wouldn’t you like me to call a
doctor?”

“I’m all right, young man.”
Dryfoos took his hat and stick from him, but he made
for the door so uncertainly that Beaton put his hand
under his elbow and helped him out, and down the stairs,
to his coupe.

“Hadn’t you better let me drive home with
you?” he asked.

“What?” said Dryfoos, suspiciously.

Beaton repeated his question.

“I guess I’m able to go home alone,”
said Dryfoos, in a surly tone, and he put his head
out of the window and called up “Home!”
to the driver, who immediately started off and left
Beaton standing beside the curbstone.